Travel in the Era of Covid-19: October 2021 Fall Trip to Canada





Part III: Air Transat: Club Class Across Canada – if you can sell hot pizza or chicken meal in economy, why do you offer a cold boxed meal in your premium cabin?

Air Transat is one of the Canadian leisure airlines and it made it to the news pre-Covid-19, when Air Canada tried to buy the company. The pandemic ultimately killed the deal and Air Transat, after suspending operations for a while, returned to flying earlier in the year. Of course, international travels were impossible for a while, so Air Transat restarted a few domestic flights linking the major cities, including YVR-YYZ/YUL and YYC-YYZ/YUL. The route that interested me the most was the summer weekly nonstop flight between YVR and Quebec City, but the schedule just did not work out for me. In the end, I just settled on a “boring” roundtrip from YVR to YYZ, and back from YUL to YVR. Montreal seems to be Air Transat’s base, as I saw a number of their aircraft parked in at Dorval airport. Their Club Class is quite reasonably priced, which is lower than Air Canada and WestJet’s premium economy fares, and I am quite excited to fly my only “new” airline of the year. Of course, while the new Airbus A321 and the service was lovely, the onboard catering just fell so short of what was acceptable. While I want to support the airline, I don’t think I have any interest to go out of my way to fly it until it brings back a proper hot meal in your premium cabin. If you can sell a hot meal in economy, passing out a cold lunch box to your Club guests is unacceptable. BTW, it will be great if you can update your website by telling your Club guests that your “gourmet meals” are boxed meals, and I sincerely hope that their transatlantic flights feature a real hot meal. No wonder their Club cabin is so lightly loaded even on a busy post-Thanksgiving travel day.

October 12, 2021
TS 931 YVR-YYZ Lv1140 Arr1915 Airbus A321-200NX/LR C-GOIJ
https://photobucket.com/u/Carfield76/a/ ... 2bd3359eda

Check-in:





Check-in for Air Transat’s domestic flights took place over at the international area. Given how small the international operation was at Vancouver now, I was not surprised that Air Transat’s check in took place over at the international area. Swissport was its agent and there was a separate priority check-in lane for Club class guests. For some reason, the agent had issues checking me in, after trying to scan my US passport. She was unable to tell me what’s wrong, and in the end, I asked her if she wanted to see my vaccination card. She just nodded yes and asked my permission for a photo of it to send to her supervisor. First, it was still early October and vaccination was not required. However, it was clear that I could not enter Canada without fully vaccinated. Second, she could just ask outright that Air Transat needed to see my vaccination card for whatever reason. I would be more than happy to even give her a physical copy. As of this point, enough people saw my vaccination card that I was not offended. Finally, I still did not know why she was having problems. Anyway, I got my boarding pass and my checked bag was tagged. I was reminded that I needed to walk back to the domestic area for security and boarding. Be warn that Air Transat was strict with cabin baggage size and weight.

I had a few moments at the observation deck and spotted this Flair’s Boeing 737. Sadly, my plan to fly Flair did not go through and maybe next year if it survives.



Security for Concourse B was a nightmare given the busy afternoon bank of flights including two Air Transat flights and many WestJet flights. Plus it was the post-Canadian Thanksgiving rush, not to mention many leisure travelers, who did not know what to pack and the stupid random check that the security had to conduct. If you have Nexus card, your experience will be better. Thank goodness! I got my updated Nexus card now.

Of course, there is no lounge access for Air Transat but at least there is priority boarding.

C-GOIJ at gate B17




Boarding started early for Air Transat flights and priority boarding was strictly enforced. As one of the two revenue passengers on this flight, I boarded at 10:52am. Since there was no special passenger today so I was first to board. That meant I got a rare opportunity for some lovely cabin shots.





The F/A even turned on the mood light later for me.





Club Class cabin was truly lovely. The seats were what you expected from a new generation of narrow body domestic premium/international premium economy cabin. Air Transat really installed a smart premium product and choose a nice seat. It is nothing fancy but given its price point, it is a comfortable and reasonable option for leisure travelers. As expected, there are power outlets at each seat and footrests were installed at every seat, not just bulkhead. I found the seats to be more comfortable than Air Canada’s Boeing 737 MAX’s business class seats.







At each seat, a comfort kit (blanket), traveler care kit, bottled water, and headset are already pre-placed there.




Another Air Transat’s A321LR C-GOIE next door – this one was heading to Montreal.




The flight was fairly full in economy and the F/As were pretty friendly. While it is not formal or polished like Air Canada or the new WestJet, the F/As are really happy to get you anything. Door was closed at 11:33am and we pushed back at 11:36am.

A few WestJet Boeing 737s as we taxied towards R/W8R.




We took off at 11:48am for our four hours and eighteen minutes flight to Toronto. We started at 33,000ft and later climbed to 35,000ft after passing Regina. Vancouver was typically cloudy but it was still a nice climb out.




Cabin service began shortly after seat belt sign was turned off at 12:01pm. Economy cabin has a complimentary non-alcoholic beverage service, followed by a buy on board service featuring hot pizza and a warmed chicken dish for sale. Alcohols are also available for purchase. It is fairly standard for most full service domestic Canadian carrier these days.

For Club cabin, our friendly purser offered us a pre-meal beverage with a mini tub of Pringle’s potato chips (which was not offered on the longer return flights).


Shortly after, the purser asked me for my preference for meal, which was both cold dishes – a chicken quinoa salad or a vegetarian dish. I was a bit shocked but at least the chicken quinoa salad sounded normal. However the presentation was really poor.







Honestly the chicken quinoa salad was not bad at all, especially compared to the garbage I was served on the return flight. The salad was fresh and the chicken was not dried out. Everything except that cheap bag of sliced apple and packaged cheese could easily be placed on a tray and served as a proper gourmet meal. The pandemic certainly has been a concern earlier last year and even earlier this year, but by October, both Air Canada and WestJet have already resumed a proper hot meal service in its premium cabin. This lunch box was unacceptable in any premium cabin. Not to mention that you are selling hot meals in the economy cabin, which means that serving hot food is not against any Covid-19 protocol. If I am not being careful with my diet now, I would have asked to buy a hot meal. Thankfully I ate a good breakfast earlier in the day and the eastbound flight was short. It was just disappointing.

I saved my chocolate with my cup of tea after the purser cleared my box.


Seat in recline mode – quite comfortable for a daytime flight




Bathroom






For the rest of the flight, nothing much was offered. The purser and the other F/A refilled my tea a few times, but there was no additional snacks or refreshment offered.

Descent began at 6:40pm Toronto local time.
It was a lovely night in Toronto and I took quite a few shots on arrival.





We landed on R/W24L at 7:06pm and parked at gate C32 at 7:17pm.


It was a decent walk toward the baggage claim but bags started to come out at 7:33pm. While the priority tag did not work at all, the delivery speed was great. I was out of the airport within thirty minutes after our aircraft was parked at gate.

October 13, 2021
TS 772 YUL-YVR Lv1855 Arr2130 Airbus A321-200NX/LR C-GOIH
https://photobucket.com/u/Carfield76/a/ ... 0d9077b0f2



Check-in area:
Air Transat has quite a large check-in area here at Montreal, which was located between the international and domestic areas. There is a Club class lane and it is opened four hours prior to the departure of its flight to Vancouver. It seems like the evening Paris flight (I presume all international flights) share the same check-in queue too. While the staffs are not the friendliest, they perform their duties in a efficient and polite way. Once they knew I was a legitimate Club class passenger, they made sure that they thanked me for my business. With no wait at all, the whole check-in process was smoother than my inbound flight.




Spending four hours at Montreal airport was not that easy & plane activities were lots of limited after the early afternoon international bank of flights had arrived. The domestic A concourse was fairly quiet especially this afternoon. I was back at gate A11 again, and was able to see the plane used on my flight back to YVR being towed to the gate.

C-GOIH











The flight seemed to be fairly busy tonight in both cabins, but Club Class was still quiet. However there were more non-revenue passengers this time. I really did not care much, as long as I had an empty seat next to me, which I appreciated. The gate agents were very aggressive with checking carry-on baggage size. They actually sent an agent walking around with a sizer and even over-stuffed bags were forced to be checked. The only “good” thing was that they just checked those bags for free. However, if you don’t want your roller bags to be checked, I recommend sitting elsewhere before coming to the gates for boarding. There were many unhappy passengers and I did not even speak French. The supervisor was especially forceful, as her male colleagues were too polite.

Boarding began at 6:13pm, and the flight attendants on this flight were still polite, but a bit more formal than my previous segment. They got the job done efficiently and left us alone after “dinner.” Some additional amenities were also offered for this segment too. I like the slippers.






Door was closed at 6:50pm and we pushed back on time. Taxing time was short. We took off from R/W24L at 7:12pm. Flying time was five hours and three minutes. We started at 34,000ft and later settled at 36,000ft.

For this segment, there was no pre-dinner beverage service with any refreshment. The F/A went straight to passing the meal box but at least he showed each passenger the choices before serving them. The meal box was really nasty on this flight. The choice was this cold barbecue chicken rice salad or vegetarian pasta. In hindsight, I should have gone with the vegetarian pasta. The chicken entrée should really be served warm and who think that cold rice was appropriate for any chilled dishes. This time, there was a packaged ciabatta roll (which was served across all Canadian airlines premium cabin these days). The green salad was okay but there was no cheese and crackers. I felt that there was less food. Thankfully I knew better and bought a wrap at the airport café during my long layover.







For the rest of the flight, nothing much was happening. I stuck with reading and the F/As did a final beverage at 9:50pm Montreal time/6:50pm Vancouver time. They really locked up the galley early.

Descent began at 8:52pm and we landed on R/W8R at 9:15pm. For some reasons, we did not park at our gate B26 till 9:28pm.

The arrival experience was best described as “slow” and I almost felt like that they did not hire an additional team to service our flight. So we had to wait till they finished unloading the Toronto flight, which arrived before us first. Bags did not come out till 10:01pm. At least the priority tag worked.



In conclusion, Air Transat is really not bad as a leisure airline. The catering truly sucks especially on the return flight but they are cheaper than the full-service airlines. I really will not go out of my way to fly it but if the price is right, I will go for it. I am sure once they bring back the normal catering, things will look better. I hope you enjoy reading this trip report on an airline that is relatively unknown outside of Canada.

Carfield